The United States has become the fifth men’s basketball team to qualify for the 2024 Olympics in Paris, securing one of the two spots available to the top FIBA Americas finishers in this year’s World Cup.
Entering Sunday’s games, Puerto Rico, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and Canada were all still in the running for spots in next year’s Olympics. However, the Puerto Ricans lost to Italy, the Brazilians fell to Latvia, and the Dominicans were defeated by Serbia. As a result, Puerto Rico, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic won’t make the World Cup quarterfinals.
Canada could become the second Americas team to qualify for the Olympics with a win over Spain today. If Canada loses, Brazil would join Team USA as an Olympic qualifier by virtue of a tiebreaker — Brazil defeated Canada on Friday and has a better point differential than Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic.
The roster that represents the U.S. at the 2024 Olympics figures to look quite a bit different than the one currently competing in the Philippines. Most of the country’s biggest stars didn’t commit to playing in the 2023 World Cup, but could be more inclined to travel to Paris for next year’s Olympics.
At the last Olympics, in 2021 in Tokyo, Khris Middleton and Jayson Tatum were the only players that USA Basketball carried over from its 2019 World Cup roster.
The U.S., Australia, France, Japan, and South Sudan have now qualified for the 12-team Olympic tournament in 2024. The two European teams to qualify via the World Cup likely won’t be known for a few more days, since Germany, Slovenia, Serbia, Lithuania, Italy, and Latvia all remain in the hunt, as would Spain with a win over Canada today.
The final four Olympic spots will be decided in a qualifying tournament next year.
Based on how they looked today, they’ll be lucky to medal.
If they learn not to foul. Missed a lot of easy open shots. More players need to step up not ride Edwards for all the points.
Maybe, I just think they’re up against better teams that actually have their best players from their respective countries.
USA team has not played together that long while they played a team that been playing together for a long time. You could tell on defense which team had the most time together on the court.
Sorry Bruno. Maybe in another two years
Was there some doubt?
Funny how our bigs are getting bullied.
We used to call European bigs soft. They learned from playing in NBA.
Two Knicks ……
Brunson – 23 mins, 14 pts, 7 ast, 4 reb
Jokubaitis – 23 mins, 9 pts, 6 ast, 3 reb
Knicks can also use Joku in a trade. He’s at worst a solid backup PG.
Kerr has to play Jackson and Banchero more for size and rebounding. Kessler too. When they try to bully us. Go big. Kerr is so use to going smaller as a weapon . Probably forgot how to use bigs.
Lithuania had 7 score in double figures. Two had 9 points.
USA had 4 score in double figures. With Ant at 34. It’s a TEAM game. Better Freakin wake up Kerr ……..
Strange blog entry that completely omits team USA’s defeat by a Lithuanian squad that featured only one NBA player in Jonas Valanciunas. Especially since the Olympic qualification is old news after team USA’s win against Montenegro two days ago.
The Lithuania game was still in progress when this was published and its outcome was irrelevant to their place in the quarterfinals or their Olympic qualification.
The Friday win over Montenegro also didn’t secure an Olympic berth, since Canada, the D.R., Puerto Rico, and Brazil were still in the running for the QFs until Sunday.
South Sudan is looking unbeatable.